The Spirit of the Lonely Mountain
by Elizabeth Athineu
Summary: Thorin and Smaug meet face to face in a fever while Thranduil regrets his actions that led to the fever. Smaug explains, with arrogant indifference that something else called him to the Erebor; something that cried within the Lonely Mountain that even Thorin as a young dwarf could sense . . .
1. Part I: The Spirit and The Prince

**Part I: The Spirit Awakens, The Prince Sleeps**

Heat; not from fire without, but from within. Thorin felt the heat all around him and throughout him as if the very blood in his veins was churning fire. He groaned and remembered the small wound that had remained untreated by a healer he had incurred during the journey and had not even divulged to Fili or Kili. It was a scratch on his chest, nothing more; a superficial disturbance of the flesh that he had dealt with before, but now it felt like a warg's bite. The fever accompanying it was driving him mad and now he was fighting madly through darkness, writhing in nothingness until he settled on a light in the distance. It was bright, whatever it was, and it was quite distant, but at least it was a goal. He gathered what he could of himself and move forward as the heat in himself slowly melting away from his consciousness was overtaken by the light. Could they be the same thing with different focus? He shook that thought away at remembering that not all light brings heat and not all heat is accompanied by light. He heard harsh breathing in the distance as well. Or was it purring at a level louder than any cat could alone produce?

"Whoever awaits ahead," he announced proudly. "Whoever waits ahead, be it known that Thorin, King Under the Mountain, is approaching you. I come from the unjust imprisonment of Thranduil, the Elvenking and if you will give me aid I . . ."

"Why would you seek aid from _**me**_?" a strange, solid, smooth, and strikingly familiar yet never heard before by the dwarf met him. He froze and listened carefully. The voice said nothing further and so Thorin moved further forward, cautiously at the first and then hurriedly to see this source of light. As he moved closer, he noted that the light was reflection, reflection of but a very small fire at the center of a large room . . . filled with gold and jewels. He had seen the room before and it was a good thing that he was a great distance away from the fire or his sudden breath would have extinguished it in a moment. He stood suddenly in the very last place he had seen his family's eldest. Surrounded by the very treasure he sought, having not even remembered descending into the room, he glanced around in horror and wonder all at once. Surely this was a dream. Even Thranduil didn't have the means to tunnel beneath the forest that surrounded his self-proclaimed realm all the way to Erebor and into its treasury, though he wouldn't have put it past elves to be crafty and pilfering enough to attempt it. "I should think not, lesser one. The elves might have skill and even wisdom in some of them, but even they have not seen themselves immune to those greater than themselves."

"Who are you?" Thorin demanded, reaching instinctively for the sword he usually kept at his side. To his surprise, it had been returned to him. The elves had stripped him of everything that he could've used to defend himself, including all under armor, and now it was all returned. Was this a dream? He turned to one side and then the other, beginning to tremble ever so slightly at this familiarity and foreign strangeness surrounding him. He held his sword aloft, the blade catching the light of the fire and flashing a sheen of silver against the gold every so often. He heard the breathing grow louder and warmth suddenly envelop him, though the urge to shudder also pressed itself against his stalwart heart as well. "Is this a vision? Are you a dream?" he asked uneasily.

"Yes," the voice replied happily. Thorin frowned, his visage growing pale with dread and burning red with fury all at once. He was positively ignited and petrified while being white hot as he stood face to snout with the largest creature he had ever seen in waking moments. The heat emanating from this creature was almost as intense as the fever that was still burning within him. He stared back in sheer shock at the sight of the dragon as it turned its head and withdrew, settling back on a pile of gold and looked down at him with resignation. "And no."

"Smaug," Thorin whispered, the word escaping his lips as he had not allowed it to for some time; with reverence. He continued to stand, though was quite sure that had he not been standing before he would have fallen flat on his back just as the Halfling had done. He gripped his sword, clenched his jaw, and glared hatefully at the dragon. "I have waited a lifetime for this."

"Indeed," Smaug replied casually. "But your life will not end so soon after mine," Smaug added turning his gaze back to the dwarf as his eyes seemed to now glow with an odd presence of sobriety that Thorin could never have fathomed a beast to be capable of to begin with. The dragon frowned at him. "Though it is a shame that it comes so close to the deaths of your nephews, and that Fili is helpless to revive his brother before his own untimely demise."

"_**Lies**_! The strength of my people is in them as it is in me," Thorin roared back. Smaug raised a scaly brow at him inquisitively. "They will one day share the duties of kingship in this realm!"

"The line of Durin will end, son of Thrain," Smaug replied calmly. "With the cadence of your final breath drawn to the halted melody of your heart." Thorin stared at the dragon in horror, though he did not consider the creature a visionary by any means. The fear of such things had weighed in the back of his mind where it had been firmly shoved aside after seeing such loss among his own kind. The task was delicate enough for even an army, but for 13 dwarves and a hobbit it was even less prudent, but necessary nevertheless. "And what do you consider necessary to your rule?"

"How do you know my thoughts?!" Thorin demanded, pointing the sword accusingly at the dragon, though he knew in his sensible self that such a blade would hardly prove an efficient weapon alone in slaying him. He snarled, anger and rage that had been seething in the void of exile for decades became a surfaced outcry in him. "And why do you speak of a future that would imply your death?"

"It is the nature of all substance, be it living or otherwise, to transform through some means. And for those of us who know life, it is most often done through death," Smaug said indignantly as if Thorin had spoken as ignorantly as a common ogre. "Did you never learn that in your lessons to purify metals and craft greatness from your own life as a prince of Durin's Line?"

"How dare you speak of life when you have spilled much blood even without ripping kingdoms apart; your desecration spread like a disease in the years that followed your slaughter in this very city?!" Thorin snarled.

"There was no senseless slaughter, dwarf, only a nightmare; it was nature's work. You lesser ones are so small that it cannot be helped that some of you were bound to die in the process," Smaug replied hotly. "If I had sought after life alone, if I had come here to claim and merely kill," he sneered, slinking into the gold as if it were water and he a serpent of the sea. His wings folded neatly against him as his body followed his head and massive neck into the pile, shifting the gold ever so slightly as he swam through it and came out the other end behind the dwarf. Thorin found himself momentarily caught off guard and leaping in fright before catching himself and standing with unyielding rage, blade still pointed at the beast now that he was properly turned to face it once more. Smaug scoffed at the display as he finished his statement. "There would have been no survivors, not even those as keen and capable as you are; for a lesser one."

"I did not say you came to kill alone," Thorin snapped back defensively. "But your lust for our treasure was equal to nothing short of lust for blood and that is precisely what you wallow in, though the blood is now dried and long since ruined the stones of this city, staining its memory."

"Lust? Treasure?" Smaug retorted indignantly once more. "You, a lesser one, think that the stories of any creature with such greatness is sullied with a simple love of gold?" Thorin looked at the dragon with more curiosity now. What else could have brought a dragon that far south and into a settlement? "Believe what you will, dwarf, I care not. I could as easily kill you now as I could have then and be done with it, but to kill without being provoked is murder and I am no murderer."

"You are more than a murderer, you are a thief and an abomination of nature itself," Thorin spat.

Smaug roared angrily and reared back before looming over the dwarf menacingly, bearing his teeth and allowing smoke to pour from his nostrils for a moment. "My people were greatly grieved by Morgoth in the first years," he hissed. "And once we knew flight, we never looked back to servitude of the darkness like the Fell Beasts, the dragons in that dark pestilence's service. They are the abomination! We bound ourselves to the protection of the land no matter the cost to us, beholden to the sky and rock that shielded and nurtured us as a nation," he replied with the haughty tone Thorin had heard in Thranduil's voice. "The real abominations of nature are those creatures which do those dark and terrible deeds in the name of greed and selfish pride," the dragon added. "You know," he said with a lighter tone, ". . . elves."

"And my people, too, I suppose?" Thorin demanded.

Smaug grinned. "And your people, too; the ones that delved into mountains and caverns without regard for the sacred stone they cut into," he said as if their roles were reversed. Thorin now oddly felt compelled to defend his own presence here as if Smaug were the rightful king and he a burden. He twists his words, all villains do, they weave their lies in prose and prideful speech, he thought. "You would know more about that than I. Such a small and insignificant creature with pride unbecoming of a royal heir. And yet you stand before a creature with timeless magnificence, whose awesome majesty cannot be denied if for no other reason than my insurmountable size. Such a pitiful creature, so entombed in defiance after your predecessors defiled the earth itself."

"This is trickery, nothing more than your dragon spell that you try to weave on humans and creatures of weaker minds," Thorin reasoned aloud, not wanting to allow the dragon's words in. They echoed into a plea he had repeatedly made to his grandfather as the sickness, the lust for shimmering gold, continued to take him. He had feared that continuing to mine too deeply would weaken the strength and integrity of their palace, but Thror would not be swayed. He shook his head. "This is a nightmare, a dark vision. A byproduct of the filth that lurks in the Elvenking's halls, no doubt."

"Yes, do tell yourself that," Smaug replied, curling his tail around himself and shifting to get comfortable. "You must have some means of consoling yourself until the truth arrives."

"I am in a swoon, a fever, an illness of some sort," he stammered, lowering the blade and looking suddenly desperate for a way out of this place. "Or their magic has taken hold of me and this their means of torture."

"Again, yes," Smaug replied, snorting and lowering his head a little. "And no."

"What do they think they will accomplish by this?" Thorin wondered aloud to himself. "I will die before that fair-haired little guttersnipe gets a word of my intentions."

"I could think of better insults for Thranduil, son of Oropher, if that would ease your mind for a short while," Smaug offered. "We will, after all, be here together you and I for quite some time, eternity, one might argue."

Thorin finally looked up at the dragon once more, meeting his gaze with a tempered anxiety turned to rotten hatred yet again. "You have no right to hate them as I do," he replied curtly.

"Don't I?" Smaug asked innocently. He scooted even closer to the dwarf, moving very much like a cat. "Perhaps it is time, Lesser One, that you know the real history of the mountain you seek to claim as your own. Perhaps you should know what brought me to this place at the very start," he offered. "It was never my intention to break a line of kings. But when a cry for help is made by stone, there are few guardians to answer its call."

"Guardian?" Thorin asked with a scornful huff. "Is that how you see yourself?!"

"Is that not how you see yourself? Is that not why you brought your sister's whelps along with you?" Smaug retorted as if they were somewhat equals, though the dragon's gaze and tone reiterated consistently his belief in his own superiority. At the moment, Thorin could not deny him this at least in size and formidability. The dragon drew in a deep breath and then sighed heavily. "Yes, it is time you knew what transpired long before Erebor was a notion in the mind of a dwarf." Thorin watched the dragon slink even closer, settling back against a pile of gold while lying on the ground still curled up like a cat. "Come closer, lesser one," Smaug offered with a chilling kindness in his voice. "Come closer and I will tell you all that should be weighing on your mind and heart in place of futile hatred of elves and thirst for the blood of the pale orc."

(*)

"How long has he been like this?" Thranduil asked in sincere concern.

"He has not stirred in three days," Tauriel replied heavily. She looked at her king with a sadness she had never expected to be attached at the thought of losing a prisoner, but this prisoner had most recently seemed to be breaking under the denial of freedom more pitifully than any other she had ever seen. "No one had been in with him, as you commanded. No one knows when exactly the fever took him; just that he would not take food or drink for three days. Legolas became unsettled when he did not respond to his own name this afternoon, I sent for him when I suspected there was something amiss."

Thranduil turned and scowled at the she-captain of his guard. His son was never to be involved directly with prisoners as dangerous as these without being given an order. For that matter, it was not the duty of the prince to answer the call of a servant let alone a Silvan elf beneath his own breeding. Tauriel lowered her gaze, realizing the king's wrath was now aimed at her in place of the anger he should have borne himself for allowing an innocent creature into his dungeons. He reached down to Thorin's brow and felt cautiously for the traces of life still in him. His breath and blood pulsing were shallow and weak while the heat was more fervent than a funeral pyre. He sadly placed the whole of his hand against the dwarf's face before ordering Tauriel to go and find the healers and bring them and their tools to the dungeons at once.

"This was not what I wanted," Thranduil replied sadly. The tears that had fallen so long ago for days at the loss of the last dwarf that had held his friendship now resurfaced at the sight of his grandson taken so violently by illness because of pride. "I mourned that night. I should've come down for you, we should've mourned together." Thorin seemed to stir and Thranduil suddenly grew silent. He felt compelled to speak the words aloud, but only if the dwarf wouldn't truly hear them, though part of him desperately wanted to have the freedom to speak openly about the dreadful sorrow that had consumed him at the loss of Thror. He willed what magic he could summon around them and commanded it to create a soothing mist. Thorin's complexion improved in the very slightest after a few shallow breaths of the cool, soothing mist. "I was as troubled when I heard of Thrain's departure as well," he added. "And feared your death would follow close behind." He looked the helpless prince over, still young compared to those that had ruled before him. He was an orphan, a homeless creature, and a king without a throne or crown. There was not a sadder or more lonesome place to be even in the company of 12 others of his own kind.

"Your Majesty," Tauriel's voice interrupted. Thranduil turned and retracted his hand and the mist as she gestured for the healers to enter. The set of three elves that she had fetched swooped down over the fallen prince deftly as the king stood and moved to the doorway. Tauriel watched him as he watched the work begin, still ill at ease. She frowned and moved closer to him. "Sire, what troubles you?"

"What troubles me is that the captain of my guard stands idly by me in a dungeon instead of tending to her endless duties elsewhere," Thranduil snapped. Tauriel stared back at him sadly. He had never spoken so harshly with her before, never been cruel. He sighed and grasped his brow as she bowed her head solemnly. "Forgive me, I forget that your place is at my side when I command it to be and you did follow my instruction."

"My King," she offered soothingly, "It is not a dire situation. It's only a dwarf."

Thranduil froze and stared at her in horror. What had he done? She spoke so eagerly to comfort him by denying the grandson of a once proud and dear friend dignity itself? He shuddered inwardly at what she thought of him in this moment, but did not correct her. It was better she think him a boastful creature that dealt harshly with a race regardless of its individuals than to deny that dwarves were still, as a general rule, unpleasant and unwelcome creatures better left to their own foul devices in the caverns of the Iron Hills than to even trade with them for their master craftsmanship. He sighed and nodded, ensuring that the deep-seeded hatred for dwarf kind would remain, as would his silent regret for turning and abandoning the young grandson of Thror. He was only child, really, his conscience chided. And now you'll get to see what might've been more merciful that day, to die in the dungeons of an elf is, although, a more dignified death than at the base of a crumbling palace infested with dragon. "Is it?" he thought aloud. Tauriel looked at him with concern. He turned and looked at her as emotion drained from him and somber majesty returned. "Go and see if this has spread to the others. If they carried it in upon them, they might infect our water, and the men of the lake downstream would be at great risk."

"Of course, Your Majesty," Tauriel said with a bow, hurrying towards the rest of the dungeons.

He sighed and turned back to the sight of the healers, hard and fast at work on the oldest living heir of Durin. This is your fault, you know, he chastised inwardly. Hatred was never fitting for a creature as grand as those that heard the call to the distant shores. Even though the Moriquendi had not heeded the call, they were still above such things in theory. He shook his head sadly. "What do you see within, I wonder?" Thranduil said softly. "What paints your mind when the palate is feebled by such wretched illness?"

(*)

"I was born long ago," Smaug said as Thorin, despite his best instincts, settled against a column, still standing. Smaug watched him and waited for him to be seated, but the dwarf was still far too ill at ease, still too infuriated to allow himself the presence to do so. The dragon shook its head and sighed. "My mother was a wind-drake drawn to the Misty Mountains by the presence of orcs. My father, a great fire-wyrm, drawn to the very same place by the very same force. It is not usually in the nature of wyrms and drakes to mate any more than it is in the nature of an elf and a human, though in like manner it happens from time to time. She was called Smyrna, and had from birth been stricken with a fluttering heart that was grieved greatly by my birth," Smaug explained.

"I was always led to believe that dragons either spawned in water," Thorin said hotly, giving a subtextual insult that Smaug felt instantly and snorted at. "Or laid eggs and hatched those that they didn't eat."

"Drakes set their fledglings in water from time to time giving the appearance of spawning and all wyrms lay eggs, but I was significant," Smaug replied in a calm pride that burned Thorin. "I bore the birth and freedoms of my mother and the colour elemental of my father."

"And the name?" Thorin asked, taking a step closer, eyes still burning with hatred. Smaug lifted a brow in curiosity. "Sensible creatures name their young appropriately after themselves to bind a suitable past to them."

"As I said," Smaug continued. "My mother's name was Smyrna." The dragon shifted. "My father's name was Augur. Usually the name of the sire is used first to entitle our young, but again, I was significant."

"You use that word so often," Thorin noted. "One wonders if you question it when all is silent around you."

"Hardly," Smaug said raising his wings and stretching them menacingly as he yawned. The yawn seemed at first to be a roar or a gathering of fire within the creature that made Thorin once again too taken aback to not jump backwards. "When all is silent around me I sleep. There has hardly been silence in this world since the lesser ones began their wars against one another."

"What do you know of war?" Thorin asked spitefully. Smaug looked at him reproachfully as if the dwarf already knew the answer and it was painful. "I wondered in bitter exile because of the war you made against my people!" Smaug stood on all fours at this and growled softly. "I who was at the death of my father, and am now until my own end, King Under the Mountain! You struck us at our core after slaughtering an entire city of helpless men!"

"If they had been helpless," Smaug said in so low a tone that Thorin felt afraid of the sound coming crashing down in a manner of seconds. It was not in the nature of dragons to whisper or come close to it any more than it was in the nature of well-mannered elves to raise their voices. "If they had been truly helpless, then none would have survived. I am a dragon, you fool, not a goblin horde or an armada of evil men. I am invincible and there would have been none to tell the tale had they been so helpless and I a force set fully against them."

"You burned the city to the ground!" Thorin shouted in reply, almost comforted by his own shout compared to the softness of the dragon's voice. "How can you not see such an act as anything less than war and the men and the women and the children that were turned to ash in your wake as anything less than . . ."

"_**In the way**_," Smaug said, his voice growing louder and the intensity behind it growing as well. "Need I remind you that drakes of fire must dispel fire from within in order to come back to terra firma? It is no different than an ice drake drawing in moisture or a wind drake folding its wings and diving for the very rock beneath them. It was an unfortunate geographical, chemical, and kinetic necessity; not to mention few of them would have returned the treasure to its rightful place here in the mountain." Thorin looked back at the dragon, stunned. He had worked with metals and fire and had seen constructed the small toys of 'flight' that required hot air and so forth. Murmurs of making larger craft had gone among the settlements of men, but had been snuffed out when the thought of dwarves not answering the call to do so and man having to do all the work also accompanied the notion. Smaug frowned and looked away as if almost ashamed of the memory. While the concept was pleasing to the dwarf it was infuriating that the dragon seemed to be aware of it in a sentient manner and not a mindless beast. "I was answering the call and the promise of treasure to comfort me, nothing more."

"What call?" Thorin demanded.

"The Spirit of the Lonely Mountain," Smaug replied.


	2. Part II: Schemes, Dreams, and Pasts

**Part II: Of Schemes, Dreams, and Sorrowed Pasts**

Thorin was in a swoon of some sort and surfaced with his senses only to vague consciousness able to hear the traces of Sindarin spoken by the blindingly bright beings that were around him. Every so often he could hear the familiar sound of Thranduil's voice and the anger towards him made the sickened dwarf's heart begin to race with the sudden urge to rise and shout every curse in his native tongue that he could at the arrogant elf that was the cause of all this. Instead, every bone, sinew, and nerve within him either pleaded or demanded through pain and exhaustion to remain still and allow what must've been the healers to treat him. He groaned audibly and then heard the soft chuckling of the dragon. Was it in the king's palace somewhere? Panic began to fill him and he clearly heard one of the elves over him state that his heart was beating too quickly. The others moved just as quickly, administering both a salve outwardly to an area on his neck and pouring an elixir into his mouth, urging him to swallow. As he did, the rage and fear faded into a welcomed cool darkness. Not a frightening, silent darkness, but a peaceful void like a pleasant autumn's night in childhood. He sighed and realized that he was not restrained. Then, realizing the urge to move once more, he turned and shifted against the strange bed he was lying on and curled up against some sort of enormous pillow. Strange though; this bolster seemed to be harder than most others and the more he breathed near it, the more offensive it smelled to him. He found the presence to open his eyes and let out a small cry, struggling to stand or at least crawl away as hurriedly as a frightened mouse.

"For Durin's sake, it's not as though you awoke on a heap of dung. Stop your miserable squirming and go back to sleep," Smaug said with irritation, lifting his head at the end of his long neck that happened to be facing the dwarf as he lay curled up near the center of the dragon's palm which had been extended in a supine position for some time. Before Thorin could make it off the dragon's hand and out into the treasury once more, Smaug closed his hand around him and growled. "You are clearly not going to hear reason, lesser one, so return to sleeping until the elves have finished with you."

"Release me at once you malodorous, perverse, heap of . . ." Thorin began angrily.

Smaug snarled and swiftly pulled the dwarf up to his long snout, looking him boldly in the eye as the blood began to drain from Thorin's veins and trickle into the ether with terror. "Do finish that statement," the dragon said with a hiss. "I would hate for royalty, even dwarf royalty, to leave an open preposition dangling as proof of their verbal ignorance."

"This is a dream; I am in command. These images, the ruins, this gold, even you are mine to control," Thorin sternly affirmed, hoping madly that it was true though he was doubting it more and more as time passed and several types of fear took him. Smaug snarled a little louder, raising the corners of his mouth and revealing the longer, jagged teeth waiting for a good feed even on such a small morsel. Thorin couldn't hide his trembling, though he remained unyielding in his stance.

"If this dream is under your command, Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror and Heir of Durin's Line," Smaug retorted sarcastically. He pulled the dwarf closer. "Then make me disappear."

Thorin stared back at the dragon in disbelief at the challenge for a moment and then drew in a deep breath to match his resolve, shutting his eyes tightly and willing everything around him to disappear so that he would be waiting in the dungeons with his companions once more. Even that was better than facing this menace. A shallow breeze swept over him and he no longer felt himself in the dragon's hand. Instead, he was back in the dungeon as he had desired. To his surprise, there were no elves, no healers, no cot, not a thing. He stood slowly and glanced around carefully in the darkness. He walked over to the door, his hand sweeping along the wall as his fingers told and retold him that the cold dungeon stone was real. As he put both hands against the barred door, it suddenly moved forward with his slight pressure. His eyes widened once more and he pushed the door fully open. He let out a shout of joy and then reminded himself that there were surely guards nearby and he as well as his companions would be done for if they found him wandering about. Thranduil would have him chained to the wall if he suspected the dwarf was capable of escape. He hurried to where he had heard Bilbo describe the first cell, the one with Fili. He looked in through the bars and frowned. The room was empty. His stomach lurched and his heart sank at the sight. He threw caution to the silent, still, and windless halls as he cried out for his older nephew. After a few moments, he hurried on to the next cell that should have held Bofur. If anyone was to respond, to be heard and to be rejected by the elves, it would be Bofur and his inability to keep even the smallest of issues silent. That cell, too was empty. Thorin slammed both hands against the solid portion of the door, screaming in frustration. A loud and eerie laughter resonated through the halls and then Thorin realized that it was coming from the throne room.

"Whatever you have done to my kin," Thorin sneered, taking his enormous sword in both hands and advancing towards the throne room with a clear and definite desire to cut Thranduil's head from his neck in one swipe. "Whatever evil has befallen him, it will be visited on you, your family, and your people until they are no more than food for the spiders that stalk your forests!"

The laughter grew louder and Thorin suddenly realized that there were no elves anywhere in the palace as he followed the sound. No guards, no servants, no courtiers, not even the king's precious son. His mouth went dry and he groaned sickly as he neared where he had remembered the throne room being. As he entered, he found the polished and ostentatious room of marble, oak, and cedar just as empty and just as eerily without sound or sign of air. He cautiously turned around, looking carefully for any creatures that might be hiding, ready to do harm to him in a most unsporting manner, which was nothing less than he expected from an elf. Instead he heard the laughter once more and turned back towards the throne slowly. His expression fell at the sight of the being draped across it casually. Not unlike the Elvenking's posture, this man-like being sat astride the throne, long legs calmly flowing over the opposite armrest from where his back leaned. This creature, however, was wearing only one strange piece of clothing. A long robe, woven of rubies, gold, and diamonds across its front, clad the strange being. His face was unfamiliar at this distance and his hair was an unusual fire red. The hair might have been shoulder-length or a little longer had it not been sporting a life of its own in sundry sprays of locks folding up behind him like spires.

"This is hardly what I had in mind, and I am very surprised to see that it is what you had in mind," the man-creature said smoothly. It stood slowly and Thorin stared in amazement at the beautiful creature. It blinked and two sets of eyelids folded closed then open once more around amber-glazed eyes. Thorin gasped as the man moved towards him and the robe that was nothing but rubies spread out behind him and then formed upward into a set of enormous wings. He smiled wickedly and began to grow in size as stepped forward. Thorin leapt to the side and aimed quickly with his sword, ready to deal the death blow to what was surely the very source of his agony for the past century. Instead, the now giant-like man reached out and snatched him by the collar, shaking him once so that the sword clattered to the floor. "This is what you wanted, was it not? To return to the dungeons, to have freedom, and above all to have peace and the paramount sovereignty you deserve?"

Thorin said nothing as the giant became larger and his skin changed as if sores and scars were forming on every inch. He turned and hurled the dwarf at the throne. Thorin collided with the throne and both flew back a few feet. The sturdy throne was so overtaken by the force and weight that it toppled backwards and Thorin lay gasping against the back. He covered his ears as he heard the familiar roar of the dragon and watched as it seemed to rise out of nowhere, though it clearly had come from the form of the man that had drawn him into the throne room. A single talon suddenly tipped the throne forward, making it secure on the ground once more and watching as Thorin sat in the coveted polished oak seat of royalty, grinning with a wicked triumph. "And there you are . . . a proper king once again!" Smaug laughed. "But at what cost? Where are your companions? Your kindred? Your enemies?" he asked with a sneer. He drew his face closer to the dwarf, practically bursting the entire room with his massive size even with wings folded down. "Where are your sister's sons?"

Thorin's eyes widened in horror. He suddenly saw the hint of blue cloth protruding from between two of Smaug's fangs. The stench of death filled the room as the dragon laughed once more, clearly enhancing the already present halitosis in making a point to the terrified dwarf before he screamed. "Noooooo!"

(*)

The healers sat back as Thorin shouted frantically in the fever dream, head thrashing to one side and then the other. "Fili! Kili!" he screamed in desperation. "Nooooo!"

Thranduil frowned as one of the healers turned back to him. The elf lowered her head and whispered quietly. "This fever is from a wound that was infected with spider's venom; it is the reason we did not see it and he did not know to treat it," she explained carefully. Thranduil felt a dull ache in his chest at the solemn expression on her face. "If you wish for him to survive, your majesty, it would be wise to send for Lord Elrond at once. His skills are unmatched in healing and without them this dwarf could die."

Thranduil contemplated the arrival of the wizened elf-lord and the inevitable tongue-lashing about propriety with prisoners, the reason for taking prisoners, and the foolish hatred of dwarves that Thranduil exhibited with each passing day. Thranduil watched Thorin groan more loudly and writhe in pain and fever. He thought for a moment and then a sudden and wonderful thought came to him. He hurried away, leaving the healer speechless and concerned. Thranduil hurried into the botanical pantry, a massive library of herbs and spices that was the envy of many a kingdom for both its ability to create delicious food and its powerful combinations of all manner of plants for healing. This wasn't the first time he had made anti-venom and he gathered the ingredients quickly. While the healers had administered an anti-venom already, he had no doubt of this whatsoever, he did also know that there was more to the giant spiders' venom than mere poison. Thranduil had been terribly bored on a visit to Rivendell and had once come across a passage that had intrigued him greatly, as fate would have it. The pages had described in detail the simple, yet delicate means of mixing a tincture that banished dark-magic in poisons as well as poison itself. It was the only reason that Celebrian had survived in body at all when she had been brought back to Elrond. Surely it would do the same for Thorin.

(*)

Smaug frowned at the display and stepped backwards, settling back down on the ground as the palace of Thranduil melted away into the splendid gold of Erebor yet again. Thorin was oddly grateful for the return to this place and the disappearance of the cloth from the dragon's teeth. He stood, composing himself, and stared hatefully at the dragon. "You fell-beast, that was nothing more than a testimony of your cruelty!"

Smaug snorted indignantly and lowered his head. "It was hardly anything more than an illusion, an unpleasant one, but an illusion nevertheless. Is that not what you think all of this is?" the dragon asked as he gestured to the carved chasm around them. Thorin growled, gripping his empty sheath in vain, but out of habit and need for hollow comfort. "You were simply shown that you are not in control of the dream. In truth, while one can guide their own spirits in dreams, no man, elf, dwarf, nor any free folk that dream are the creators and designers of their own landscape. Such things are created by the waking world, by those that we see and hear. We can become more sentient in sleep, yes, but not stronger, not an architect of that world that we know only when our bodies command our minds to rest."

"I have neither seen nor desired to see your foul presence in waking hours. I have certainly never heard such a wretched beast speak. And I have never and will never allow such things to form my thoughts!" Thorin shouted back angrily. He pointed a finger accusingly. "This is not elf-craft, no. This must have been from Azog's wound. It is goblin-craft as surely as my line is troubled. Goblins, orcs, pale and otherwise care for nothing but torturing their victims and you," he said taking a step forward, glaring boldly and hatefully at the dragon thinking that this was an illusion created not by Thranduil any longer, but by Azog himself, " . . . you are the vulgar tool he chooses to twist my senses even from a distance."

"And what would you know of goblin-craft and the torture of orcs?" Smaug said, almost challenging the dwarf to give a full novel's length of explanation in the depth of his voice.

Thorin sneered. "I know their doings better than you or any of your kind," he spat. Smaug began to rise slowly, too slowly for Thorin to see that he was in danger at the moment, but he did feel an odd increase in heat, though he ignored it. "Your kind are equal in their transgressions upon every race in Middle Earth. A creature that visits torment upon another has no right to question another about the torment they have faced!"

"You have faced _**NOTHING**_!" Smaug suddenly shouted, rising to full height and extending his wings so that he practically filled their part of the cavern. Thorin stepped backwards, trembling a little at the dragon's words, but more curious now than frightened. Why on earth would this topic bring such anger to this creature? Smaug snarled and slunk around Thorin once before coming to face him again. Thorin felt a strange sense of unusual pity at what came next. A single tear fell from the dragon's left eye and it looked as though there were many more to follow, swelling the golden-red fold of flesh beneath both eyes. He also could've sworn he saw the dragon frowning; a feat that was quite astounding for a creature both so menacing and glad to be so. He stared back at the beast in confusion as Smaug huffed and lowered his head, drawing Thorin closer as he moved the pile of gold the dwarf was standing on towards him with the massive side of his tail. "You have seen the dungeons of an elf, lesser one. Even for as cruel and reasonless as they can be, they are at their core compassionate and refined creatures compared to any others of the lesser ones. You have yet to see a real dungeon, an orc's dungeon, as a real victim," the dragon said as his voice grew heavy.

Thorin frowned as he realized aloud what Smaug had said without words. "But you have," he continued. The dragon lowered his form a little more and folded his wings once again. "You were a captive of orcs?"

"Yes," Smaug said sadly. "And no."


End file.
